Higuain brother: “Gonzalo now close to Arsenal”

Arsenal are winning the race to sign Gonzalo Higuain after his brother/agent revealed that Juventus are unable to afford the Argentine striker now that they’ve sealed a deal for Manchester City’s Carlos Tevez.

The Gunners are thought to have lodged a club-record £22 million bid for the Real Madrid hitman and are also prepared to give the 25-year-old a hefty increase on his pay packet at the Bernabeu.

While Serie A champions Juve were very keen on Higuian it would appear that the deal for Tevez, coupled with the arrival of Fernando Llorente on a free from Atletico Bilbao, means their interest has cooled. Assuming no other club comes in with a late bid it leaves the road clear for Arsene Wenger to complete his first big-name signing of the summer.

Speaking to Tutto Mercato Web, brother Nicolas Higuain revealed: “Now that Tevez is signing for Juve, does that mean Higuain is closer to Arsenal? I think so.

“Juventus is a great club, but Gonzalo is too expensive for them. Napoli? They’re a strong team and a club that means a lot to Argentines.

“Having said that, I can’t deny that Gonzalo is now close to Arsenal.”

Presumably the noise about a possible deal with Napoli, former club of Diego Maradona, is down to suggestions new boss Rafa Benitez may be forced to sell top striker Edinson Cavani should Chelsea and Manchester City be willing to meet his buyout clause.

Arseblog News continues to urge caution, but we’re now quietly optimistic that Gonzo could well be a Gooner sooner rather than later.

To use a football analogy it feels like we’ve scored a late winner and now all we’ve got to do is play keep ball by the corner flag until the final whistle…naturally you all being Arsenal fans you’ll be aware that means it’s far from being over.

187 COMMENTS

if higuian doesn’t join us; it would be like one of those school days, when you are making out with your girl friend in your home alone and just when you remove her undies and see the magic hole, the doorbell rings- its your stupid brother/sister.

@Arseblog:
“Arseblog News continues to urge caution, but we’re now quietly optimistic that Gonzo could well be a Gooner sooner rather than later.”
He may be a gunner soon, but i don’t know we can be sure about gooner…….

Think Higuain to Arsenal is almost a done deal but then i don’t know what you people think about the Tevez deal which i think it will be a bargain for Juventus…..Higuan for 22M and Tevez for 7M?……Knew which one i will go for.

Higuain right? You’d go for Higuain. Say Higuain.
I would never want that overrated arse-raptor Tevez in a red and white shirt. Juventus are really welcome to him. I wouldn’t take a troublemaker like him for free.

Agree with all of that. After the grief we’ve had with players agitating for moves, it would be asking for it to sign Tevez.
Also, if you could post “arse-raptor” as a stand-alone comment, I’d like to give it a thumbs up of its own.

So you’d have 29 year old Tevez, who has gone through his prime, will slowly get worse and isn’t in the Argentina national team over 25 year old Huguain who is close to world class and only going to get better due to his age and is currently in the Argentina national team.

Yeah, I should have posted it as a reply to Olayinka, what I mean was ‘not only Higuain is a better player, he is also cheaper.’ As I stated elsewhere, I don’t like players with rooney’s or tevez’s attitude, I am very glad there is no such player now at Arsenal, and hope there won’t be one anytime soon, at least as long as the club doesn’t intentionally buy such players.

At the end of the season I told myself whatever happens happens and I will not look at transfer stories, that lasted a week. I really don’t want to set myself up for disappointment so until it is announced by the club we have got him I’ll keep being worried. Also I found a video you guys might enjoy while looking at transfer stories

Please don’t even joke about that.
The way this has dragged on it would be hugely demoralising if it doesn’t come off. It’s been done so publicly it’s a massive risk to take. Although there hasn’t been anything actually said by the board or Wenger it certainly seems as though they’ve been quite happy for this information to all be leaked.
It gets peoples hopes up and the board would normally play it much safer with this sort of thing.
Here’s hoping it all goes through smoothly and soon too. This move alone would make my summer.

How have Wenger/the board been happy for the information to leak? The Arsenal never talk about transfer speculation, be they based in truth or lies. You can speculate this sort of news leaking might encourage fans to renew memberships etc, but you can’t say with any certainty that they’re happy for leaks.

No, but they never comment on rumours. They’d never get anything done if they had to downplay each bit of made up speculation from the press/internet – just look at the Arsenal silly season blog. I wouldn’t take silence to mean they’re happy for it being leaked.

Err… the question is by the journalist. The “I think so” is the answer from Nicolas Higuain. Pretty straight forward.
Like when your mum says “Would you like some pizza for your dinner, Si in Galway?” and you say “Yes please.”

If it happens, all of those saying that Higuain wouldn’t go to Arsenal will have to find a new angle. Maybe “He’s not suited to the premiership”? or “He’ll get injured within a few games”. I’ve already seen the latter comment.

Real Madrid feel the need to make a statement every couple of seasons or so.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if quality players like Di Maria and Ozil are up for sale in the coming windows.. they’re the epitomy of flavour of the month.. they have to have the best of the best (their opinion of the player).

They probably don’t see Gonz as exciting as a Cavani or a Suarez or whatever.
Look at their signing of Isco.. that boy is going to be great but I dont think moving to Madrid was a good idea for him..

If you split teams into 3 sections (defence, midfield and attack), then the trophy winners this year have at least 2 sections that are very good (whether you hate them or not)…

Barcelona had midfield and attack
Utd had defence and attack
Juventus had defence and midfield
Bayern had defence and midfield

While in just the PL; City, Chelsea, Us and Spurs had one very good section. For us, the midfield were our best section for half the season and then from Feb to May it was the defence. If we can get Higuain and improve the attack to near world class then we stand a much better chance all-round.

Whether it’s enough is another question but If we can get 2 sections working throughout the season then we’ll be in better shape

It depends on what you define as a major signing. If we signed say this Illamendi chap, who would probably command a reasonable fee (but i would guess less than £15 million) from sociedad as oppose to fellaini would you describe him as a major signing?

But if we signed Higuain, Illamendi and then another 3/4th choice centre back (which by definition means they would not be a major signing) then i would still be reasonably happy with our transfer business, not over the moon by any stretch, but optimistic nonetheless.

As for Higuain potentially making us into a serious title challenger i think we need to look beyond just his own effect on the pitch. His purchase will enable us to swap our main strikers during the season and make injuries and suspensions less of an issue. Having 2 very different strikers like Higuain and Giroud can only be a good thing for the team and provides us with genuine variety upfront as oppose to the square pegs that were put up top when Giroud was rested/suspended. It also means we would have the fabled “Plan B” in games where we are struggling to create or breakdown the opposition and would allow us to change things up whether its Giroud coming on for Higuain or vice versa.

From the evidence of Higuain’s goal scoring prowess and the fact that we have often failed to take advantage of goal scoring opportunities in tight games, i think Higuain would certainly help us bridge that 16 point gap but if we were to sign him we must also strengthen appropriately in the other areas of our squad with, to quote Arsene the “right” players not necessarily the most/more expensive ones. Higuian, in my opinion,
just happens to the right player and of the more expensive variety.

Our only ‘major’ signing? No, I’d not be happy with that at all. Higuain would be a great signing, fingers crossed, and a great start to our summer, but we’d still need a new GK, a CB of some quality (again – why not get a cheap Micah Richards, who can also play RB?) and some good strength in Midfield – that could be a good DM, to free up Arteta, or a classy winger on the left might work to push Santi back into the middle.

We don’t need all of those 3/4 players to be marquee signings, but we DO need them – we can’t just keep on going with le Prof declaring that he’s “happy with his squad” when he doesn’t have faith to play half of them.

We don’t really need another winger as a priority, the DM we do, the gk would be nice, the rest we dont need any big names for really, but i want Lars Bender/ Sven Bender or Fellani level DM if were going to free up arteta we can’t trust that to a potential or a hoped diamond in the rough signing it needs to be a ready made professional with a bit of muscle.

Agreed, Bender or Fellaini would be rather lovely. I only mentioned the winger as I don’t think Gerv is really going to improve, so to have one more winger would be good – maybe a decent young un’, although I can’t think of any names. That, or maybe promote Eisfeld and give him his chance.

Assuming we get Sanogo too, I think with him and Afobe on reserve we should be set up front. Reports are starting to suggest we might get Villa too, although certainly not holding my breath on that one.

No. We need to sign FOUR top-quality players in order to turn this average side into one capable of challenging for the PL title. Higuain would be a good start, but we need a top-notch goalie, a defensive midfielder and an authentic winger to be taken seriously.

We need two top quality players in every position to seriously challenge for the Premier League let alone the ECL. We need a top quality striker Higuain 23 mill, a tough midfielder Fellaini 20 mill, a world class AM midfielder 20 mill. We will still have 20 mill for the Jan window. The money is there to buy top quality. No more fourth place is a trophy mentality. Arsenal want the Premiership. Spend da bling.

No team has had two top quality players in every position. No team, ever, in existence. Never, ever, ever.

We don’t need that. We can’t AFFORD that. What we need is more quality in our first team, and more competition amongst our players.

I’ll always point to our match against the chavs, earlier this year, for an indication on how we must improve. We were losing by a goal, and our players looked tired. And sitting on the bench was; our back-up goalie, three defenders (two of which hadn’t played in a while), two young midfielders, and Arshavin.

We were looking for a goal, and on our bench we had SEVEN players who hadn’t scored a single PL goal all season. We only had three first/second XI players out injured. How fucking retarded was that? We were never going to win the game once the chavs had scored, and they knew that.

We need to have two players in every position in our squad, yes, with some extra youngsters adding some flavour. But what we really need is to have that unpredictable factor on the bench. So, imagine this. We’re one goal down against one of our big enemies. We are attacking relentlessly to get back into the game. Our rivals are tired, desperately clinging on to their lead. Then, because we have effective squad rotation, we bring on two fresh, massively effective players who are on the bench simply because of this rotation.

The opposition panics, defenders rush everywhere, and in that chaos we steal two quick, late goals. 3 yummy points.

I know it sounds unlikely, but it’s what we used to do, and it’s what salford does recently.

Um, anyway. Rant over. Jesus, this off-licence wine binge was not a good plan.

“No team has had two top quality players in every position. No team, ever, in existence. Never, ever, ever.” … ever, ever, ever.

Manchester City. Or at least they thought they had if you accept the likes of Kolo Toure, Rodwell, Milner, Barry etc as “top quality”. (Which they obviously do given their transfer fees.)

But you do bring up two decent points.

1. We had a relatively injury-free season 2012-13.
2. We do need strengthening in depth.

With Squillaci gone, with Djourou going on loan, and with Bacary and TV5 staying we have just seven defenders. We’re missing a central defender.

With Diaby uncertain (and including Coquelin) we have just six midfielders only three of whom (Santi, Jack, and TR7) can we classify as attacking.

With Arshavin gone and the unreliability over Gervinho (whether he stays or not) we’ve a vacancy on the left.

There are holes to fill particularly if we’re to manufacture the 17 + 8 = 25 Premier League squad requirements and a decent Champions’ League squad.

Just to get to 25 we need at least 3 more players (net), and one will have to be ‘home grown’. Make that 4 taking into account Diaby will be unavailable for pretty-much the whole season.

My point is that if I know this the manager knows it too. Which is why the summer transfer window was invented. And why it only opens on July 1st. (Something, historically, we’ve always seemed to respect.)

We are going to get a central defender. And at least one extra midfielder. And, at least, one (probably two unless we name Gnabry) extra in attack.

I’m taking this as a positive. This will be our biggest signing in a long time and like most big signings there’s no way of keeping it under wraps. So maybe, rather than expecting it to be highjacked I’m seeing this as our way of being welcomed into the big spending league. Seeing as we have more cash to throw about this may be the way the rest of the summer signings will take place – no more “ta-da!” announcements only, we have to put up with the day by day updates. And yes, there will be other summer signings!

Gonzo…yeah awesome but he isn’t gooner do it all on his own; when are we gooner start hearing about more further developments with the other positions that need strengthening. Cum on Arsen, pull you’re finger out and replace it with a plug, free up ur hands mate!!?

given the vastly different styles the chances of a 2 striker formation and Santi going wide have increased, or Arsen will pick the striker best suited to the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition, i.e against stoke it will be Giroud all day long and possibly bring on Higuain late in the game as a 2nd striker if we need a goal. anti going to the left will also leave Podolski fit for striker duty as 3rd choice, not because he isn’t as good as the other 2, but because of the type of player he is, it’s a little extra depth.

It’s turning into the transfer equivalent of a long drive down to Cornwall, with the kids in the back of the car………HavewesignedHiguainyetHavewesignedHiguainyetHavewesignedHiguainyetHavewesignedHiguainyet?

In my 29 years, this is by far the most exciting transfer we have made. Well, this and Glenn Helder. I do feel a certain characteristic of being a Gooner is extreme scepticism but it would appear we are about to sign a world class footballer (have you seen the goals he has scored?)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjCDyoGSVTQ

Let’s all drop the criticism and just enjoy. This transfer window is getting me wetter by the day.

Why change our back 6 (including the DM’s) from last seasons unbeaten run? Arteta and Ramsey compliment each other with one great at passing and the other being a workhorse. While Wilshere is a very good midfielder, don’t change a winning formula. We did that in the ’06 CL final and look what happened.

Key for me is if Ramsey can improve his play going forward and get in there with a few goals for himself, he will be one of the most pivotal members of the team. As is he played a huge role last season, and I’d like him to stay in our starting 11 with Arteta. But if he steps up then he can really cement his starting place. Think he can do it.

Dr, I like the idea of wenger’s “ball carrier” role played perfectly by any of diaby/wilshere/ramsey, just that my first choice wld always be wilshere, amazing technique, I wanted to highlight that we have enough depth to compete for the title

Not Flamini, but I’ve always though Micah could do a job for us. He’d be a great choice; a back-up CB and RB with tonnes of PL experience, and he’s a gooner to boot. Not the most gifted player, but he’d be a good, reliable defender to have on hand to chuck on when we’re holding onto a slim lead, or as cover for injuries (touch wood).

Wasn’t too long ago that Richards got a run out for Ing-ger-land in some friendly at Wembley I was watching on the telly. Heavily hyped by the commentators.

My verdict: OK going forwards, but you’d be better off with a revolving door in defence. His reading of threats is non-existent, he’s too slow at getting back and even fairly crap opposition can run rings around him.

Tevez has gone to Juventus. So they’re probably not looking for another striker ?

ManCity has only 2 recognized strikers left, so they’re definitely in for a striker. Higuain ? Hasn’t Higuain played under Pellegrini at Real Madrid ? … who knows. his brother/agent saying he’s close to signing for us is just a way to get them to pay more ?

Who else is in the market as a striker and which clubs need strikers ?

Suarez, Lewandowski, Higuain, Cavani, Rooney – can anyone think of any other strikers who are likely to move ?

Real Madrid, Man City, Man Utd, Arsenal – can anyone think of any other teams that are likely to buy a striker ?

Just seen who our opponents in the CL qualifier can be and we can get Sociedad as i wrote on here at the end of the season when i was wishing Valencia good luck in coming 4th (they would’ve been seeded). Hope we avoid them but the draw will be even more tense now. http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/champions-league-play-offs-the-lowdown
Also, it’s a little strange how Tottenham were seeded despite no recent history in Europe when they qualified a few years ago (maybe they had been in a few UEFA cups) whereas Sociedad came 4th a league which must have a higher co-efficient than the PL and yet are unseeded.

My blood group is A+ this means my favorite club is Arsenal.not i am only the supporter of Gunners All my family supporter b/s of me next the WALYA national team of Ethiopia.So p/s our manager sign players.i am interested on your selection of player but i sad on your decision.

I have now spent around 6 hours per day for the last week hunting the net for the words “he has signed” and when I get up in the morning the first thought that comes to me is today is the day and its driving me crazy.
If this doesn’t happen then I want a refund of hours lost from my life.
Come on Arsenal give us the news it’s driving me crazy.